"Oh, seeing to things ... the personal property, too."
"I was sent for you," said Jack. "I suppose they thought you'd see to things."
"Yes! Certainly! Certainly! I'll be out with Mrs. Blogg directly after Meeting. Let me see."
He went to a table and laboriously wrote two notes. Twisting them into cocked hats, he handed them one after the other to Jack, saying:
"This is to the Church of England parson. Leave it at his house. I've made it Toosday, Toosday at half-past ten. I suppose that'll do. And this—this is to the joiner."
He looked at Jack meaningly, and Jack looked vague. "Joshua Jenkins, at the joiner's shop. Third house from the end of the road. And you'll find him in the loft over the stable, Sunday or not, if he isn't in the house."
It was sunset, and the single bells of the church and chapel were sounding their last ping! ping! ping-ping! as Jack drove slowly down the straggling street of York. People were going to church, the women in their best shawls and bonnets, hurrying a little along the muddy road, where already the cows were lying down to sleep, and the loose horses straggled uncomfortably. Occasionally a muddy buggy rattled up to the brick Church of England, people passed shadow-shape into the wooden Presbyterian Church, or waited outside the slab Meeting House of the Methodists. The choir band was already scraping fiddles and tooting cornets in the church. Lamps were lighted within and one feeble lamp at the church gate. It was a cloudy evening. Odd horsemen went trotting through the mud, going out into the country again as night fell, rather forlorn.
Jack always felt queer, in York on Sundays. The attempt at Sunday seemed to him like children's make-believe. The churches weren't real churches, the parsons weren't real parsons, the people weren't real worshippers. It was a sort of earnest make-believe, where people felt important like actors. And the pub, with its extra number of lamps, seemed to feel extra wicked. And the men riding home, often tipsy, seemed vague as to what was real, this York acting Sunday, or their dark, rather dreary farms away out, or some other third unknown thing. Was anything quite real? That was what the shadows, the people, the buildings seemed all to be asking. It was like children's games, real and not real, actual and yet unsubstantial, and the people seemed to feel as children feel, very earnest, very sure, very sure that they were very real, but having to struggle all the time to keep up the conviction. If they didn't keep up the conviction, the dark, strange Australian night might clear them and their little town all away into some final cupboard, and leave the aboriginal bush again.
Joshua Jenkins the godless, was in the loft with a chisel, working by lantern light. He peered at the twisted note, and his face brightened.
"Two of 'em!" he exclaimed, with a certain gusto. "Well, think o' that, think o' that! And I've not had a job o' this sort for over a month. Well, I never, t'be sure! 'T never rains but it comes down cats and dogs, seemingly. Toosday! Toosday! Toosday! Let's see—" and he scratched his head behind the ear. "Pretty quick work that, pretty quick work. But can be done, oh, yes, can be done. I's'll have t' send somebody t' measure the Boss. How deep should you say he was in the barrel? Never mind though, I'll send Sam over with the measure, come morning. But I can start right away on the old lady. Let's see! Let's see! Let's see! She wouldn't be-e-e—she wouldn't be over five foot two or three now, would she?"